


whatever you are

by suzukiblu



Category: Care Bears, Care Bears II: A New Generation
Genre: Camping, Cute Kids, F/M, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Magic, Marshmallows, Names, Summer, Summer Camp, invented backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 17:34:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18945637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/pseuds/suzukiblu
Summary: They spend most of the afternoon trying to think up a new name for Dark Heart, but it’s hard to explain to a boy who justbecamea boy why a name like “Dark Heart” sounds a little weird.





	whatever you are

**Author's Note:**

> Repost of an old fic. Unrepentant childhoodnostalgia!fluff, because dark_puck and I are secretly six year-old girls. And yeah, hahahaha _I can’t believe I wrote this_. LOVE ME FOREVER, PUCK.

They spend most of the afternoon trying to think up a new name for Dark Heart, but it’s hard to explain to a boy who just _became_ a boy why a name like “Dark Heart” sounds a little weird. In the end, Christy decides there’s really only one way to solve the problem and tells him to just tell people his parents were hippies. Dark Heart very obviously doesn’t get it, but then it turns out that what he doesn’t get is what “parents” are—at least not the way Christy and John and Dawn and even the Care Bears do. 

Christy had parents, and so do John and Dawn. The cubs are all orphans, even if they aren’t just cubs anymore, but they had True Heart Bear and Noble Heart Horse to take care of them so they get what—

Christy stops, and wonders why Dark Heart’s name is so close to the Care Bears and Care Bear Cousins’. True Heart and Noble Heart brought the cubs from someplace far away, but they said the Great Wishing Star gave them those names. She didn’t think to ask what their names were before, but she can at least think to ask where Dark Heart got his. 

Although as it turns out, he doesn’t actually know. Mind, there’s a lot Dark Heart doesn’t know but Christy always kind of assumed that particular “a lot” more involved things like, well, caring and kindness and feelings and not trapping people in chandeliers just for being too nice. Not so much things like parents and cartwheels and where he got his own name. 

“You really don’t know?” she asks, wrinkling her nose at him as he pokes curiously at the bonfire with a stick. The Care Bears and the Cousins are all back in Care-a-lot by now, and John and Dawn and most of the other campers are asleep, and the ones who are awake wandered off a while ago. 

“I just always had it,” Dark Heart replies, unbothered. He’s still not very good at being human, so Christy isn’t really surprised that he doesn’t care. 

“And you didn’t have parents or anything?” she asks. 

“I don’t think so,” he says, giving the bonfire another poke. Christy spears a marshmallow on a stick and holds it over the fire, and Dark Heart perks up in interest. “Oh! That’s food, right?” 

“Yeah, marshmallows are food,” Christy agrees, trying not to snicker and offering him the stick. Evil spirits don’t eat much sugar, she figures, although Dark Heart looks excited enough about the prospect of trying it. 

“Look, Christy, I’m cooking!” he says gleefully, sticking the marshmallow straight into the flames. Christy laughs, and grabs his hand to tug it out. 

“Not right in the _fire_ , dummy!” she says. “You’ll burn it!” 

“. . . and that’s bad?” Dark Heart guesses, giving her a sheepish look. Christy tries not to laugh, and is about a million percent sure that he only knows that because his first impulse was to do it. 

“Right,” she confirms firmly, spearing another marshmallow on a new stick and holding it above the flames. “See, you want it nice and brown, but not black. Or on fire. The black tastes bad. And fire would _definitely_ taste bad.” 

“‘Taste’?” Dark Heart repeats curiously. He is going to be _terrible_ at being a boy, Christy thinks, smiling to herself. That’s okay, though, it’s not like she’s not going to be around to help him. Well—most of the time, anyway. There’s probably a couple things John’ll have to tell him. 

“You’ll find out,” she tells him with a grin, pulling her marshmallow back and blowing on it to cool it off. She usually roasts hers longer but Dark Heart’s is already pretty brown, what with his “direct flame” approach to the whole thing. He copies her, and copies her again when she plucks her marshmallow off its stick and pops into her mouth. 

And then he falls straight off the log they’re sitting on. 

“Oh. Oh _wow_.” 

“You like it?” Christy asks, leaning backwards to grin down at him. 

“Being a boy is _so_ much better than anything else,” Dark Heart declares fervently, and Christy laughs. 

“It is pretty cool, huh,” she says. 

“Completely worth losing the shapeshifting powers,” he replies just as fervently, licking sticky bits of marshmallow off his fingers. 

“Yeah? ‘Cause you were pretty cute as that fluffy little fox!” Christy teases, and Dark Heart immediately turns pink. 

“Well, um, pretty worth it,” he says as he gets back up on the log, turning pinker, and then touches his face with a puzzled expression. “It’s hot?” 

“You’re blushing,” Christy informs him, grinning again. Dark Heart frowns in confusion. 

“What’s that?” he asks. 

“For a guy who hated feelings so much, you sure don’t know much about them, do you,” Christy says with a smile as she leans over and presses a finger into his cheek. His skin feels the same as it did when she pulled him out of the lake, but pretty different all the same. “Blushing’s when your face turns pink. You do it when you’re embarrassed.” 

“Oh,” Dark Heart says, biting his lip. His eyes are so much _nicer_ now, she thinks. “So is it a bad thing or a good one?” 

“It’s just a thing,” Christy replies breezily, spearing a new marshmallow. Dark Heart perks up again, immediately distracted, and she spears a couple more marshmallows for him too. “Is it bad not having parents?” 

“I don’t know. Is it good having them?" Dark Heart asks curiously. Christy just shrugs. 

“I guess it’s pretty good,” she says. 

“Most kids live with their parents, right?” Dark Heart asks, head tilting to one side. 

“Yeah, I guess,” Christy agrees. “Dawn and John do, anyway.” 

“What are yours like?” he asks. 

“I dunno,” Christy says, resting her chin on her knees and holding her marshmallows out over the fire. She watches them toast and thinks about maybe setting them on fire on purpose, until they go black and melt right off and sizzle away on the wood. 

“How come?” Dark Heart peers over at her. “I thought all children had parents.” 

“Well, some of us just _used_ to,” Christy says. With somebody else this would bug her—she really hates talking about this—but she knows Dark Heart doesn’t know anything about it. “I got sent here as part of—um, there’s this program thing for city kids . . . well, anyway, I don’t have any. Parents, I mean. Lots of kids _do_ , I just . . . don’t.” 

“Does that mean you live at camp too?” Dark Heart asks, brightening a little at the idea. It’s cute, kind of. 

“ _Dark_ Heart, we can’t _really_ stay at camp forever,” Christy says, laughing into her hand. Except it’s not exactly laughing because it’s . . . it’s sad. Sort of. And sort of . . . sort of something else too, because Dark Heart wants to live with her. “Camp’s just a _summer_ thing. It’s over in like two weeks, and then after that we all go home and back to school.” 

“But I don’t have a home to go back to,” Dark Heart says, frowning. 

“Yeah, uh . . . I know,” Christy says, tugging awkwardly at the bottom of her shirt. 

“Are you sure I can’t stay here?” he asks. 

“They close the camp,” Christy tells him. “No one’s gonna be here until next summer, except maybe to clean some stuff.” 

“Oh.” Dark Heart frowns again, then just smiles at her and it’s still so weird and _awesome_ to see him smile, Christy thinks. “Well, that’s alright! I’ll get a job! Boys do that, don’t they?” 

“Um . . . you’re a little young, still . . .” Christy says, looking him over. Dark Heart gives her a puzzled look. 

“I’ve existed _forever_ ,” he says. Christy wonders if he means “forever” like a really long time, or “forever” like _forever_. 

“I don’t think many grown-ups would believe that,” she tells him. Grown-ups don’t believe much, in Christy’s experience, and she doesn’t think any of them are going to take Dark Heart’s word on something like that. They’ll just call him a liar and tell him to be quiet. 

She’s really glad Dark Heart’s a boy now, but she’s kind of worried about who’s going to take care of him. Maybe he can come back to the home with her, but they’ll ask questions that he doesn’t have answers for. She can tell him what to say for the big stuff, but what if they ask something she didn’t think to tell him about? 

If she had parents, she knows they’d take care of him without asking, and they wouldn’t care if he accidentally did something bad or asked weird questions. But she doesn’t, so that’s stupid to think about anyway. 

“I could explain about how I turned into a boy?” Dark Heart suggests. Christy knows he’s trying, but he really has no _idea_ about humans. Too much time obsessing over bears, she guesses. 

“Maybe,” she says, picking a marshmallow off her stick and taking a bite of it. It’s sweet and hot and melty-good in her mouth, and it makes her feel a little better. “But grown-ups don’t believe in, like, magic and stuff.” 

“Why not?” Dark Heart asks, giving her a puzzled look. Christy slurps the oozy rest of the marshmallow up, then sucks her fingers clean while she’s trying to figure out how to answer that. 

“I guess ‘cause they’ve never seen it?” she decides after a minute. “I didn’t really believe in it before I saw it, and they’re _really_ old, so they must believe in it even less.” 

“Oh, that’s okay, then I’ll just show them!” Dark Heart says cheerfully, brightening again. 

“. . . what?” 

Dark Heart snaps his fingers, and the bonfire turns rainbow-colored. 

“. . . um,” Christy says, and blinks at it. “I thought you said you were a real boy now?” 

“Right!” Dark Heart agrees, beaming happily over at her. He’s so _cute_ , Christy thinks, and slowly bites the other marshmallow off her stick. 

“So when you were turning yourself _into_ a real boy . . . how much do you _know_ about real boys, anyway?” she asks, carefully. 

“Not that much,” Dark Heart admits. “Except for how they’re shaped, I mean, but I know a lot of shapes.” 

“Okay,” Christy says, still eyeing the rainbow bonfire and chewing really slowly. It’s a lot less creepy than all the evil-looking reds and purples, but it’s still pretty weird. She thinks about explaining that real boys don’t _have_ magic powers, but then he might fix the mistake and, well, she kind of thinks the magic powers might come in handy for a guy without much clue on how to live like a normal person and not some weird cloudy embodiment of evil. 

Also, this might mean they can visit Care-a-lot without having to wait for the Bears or the Cousins to show up with their cloud car, and that’d be pretty cool. It’s okay at the home—Christy’s definitely been in worse ones—but sometimes she just _really_ wants to be with people who’re really happy to see her, and everybody _else_ got to go to Care-a-lot. John and Dawn really liked it there, and . . . well, Dark Heart didn’t like it at all, actually, but he probably would now. Plus there’s this Forest of Feelings place too and Christy bets it would be the best place to camp _ever_. 

“Is that a problem?” Dark Heart asks, giving her a worried little look. Christy reaches over and steals one of his marshmallows and pushes it into his mouth. 

“No big deal,” she tells him easily as he licks marshmallow off his lips. “I like you as anything you wanna be.” 

“I _want_ to be a real boy,” Dark Heart insists, grabbing her hand and leaning in close with the most serious face she’s ever seen him wear. “I want to be your friend, Christy—and Dawn and John’s and True Heart and Noble Heart’s and all the bears’ and _everyone’s_. I want to go swimming and learn how to do cartwheels and cook marshmallows and _care_.” 

“Well, _I_ know that, dummy,” Christy manages, but her heart’s in her throat and she feels so light and happy when he says stuff like that. “But you already _are_ our friend.” 

“Are you sure? Am I being a good one?” Dark Heart asks hopefully, and Christy smiles and grips his hand in return and isn’t worried about any of the other stuff at all; they’ll figure it out, they’ll make it all work, because they’ll always care about each other and they can do _anything_ if they have that. 

“You’re the best!” she tells him brightly, because she already knows he will be.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr!](http://suzukiblu.tumblr.com/)


End file.
